Author: Wally Boston

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Posts by Wally Boston

My Top 10 Wish List for College Learning

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As president of a university with a mission to provide a relevant and affordable education to adult learners, I have watched as American Public University System has added approximately 70+ degree programs over my nearly 18-year tenure. As a result, we have a wide variety of career-relevant offerings, with more than 90,000 alumni and 80,000 active students enrolled in more than 200 online degree and certificate programs. Someone recently asked me what program I would advise today’s students to seriously consider for their major. […]

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Expanding Pathways to College Enrollment and Degree Attainment

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Last week, non-profit research firm ITHAKA S+R released an issue brief, discussing the policies and reforms necessary for states to increase access to higher education and degree attainment. The authors write that the U.S. has a projected shortage of five million workers with appropriate postsecondary education credentials by 2020, noting that most undergraduate students today are nontraditional. […]

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Wreaths Across America: Honor the Fallen This Holiday

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On Saturday, December 14, 2019, volunteers from all over the United States will participate in one of the year’s most sincere and heartfelt traditions to honor the fallen during the holiday season. […]

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Flight 93 National Memorial: A Personal Reflection

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On December 7, I visited the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. While I did not intend to visit it on the Pearl Harbor anniversary, it was an eerie coincidence. Just as the Japanese bombing precipitated our entry in the Second World War, so did the hijacking of four flights on 9-11-2001 launch our nation’s protracted war against terror. […]

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B-Schools – Ready for a Revolution?

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Thanksgiving vacation provided me with some time to catch up on reading. I’ve significantly reduced magazine subscriptions due to their digital availability, but one I continue to receive in print is The Economist. In its November 2, 2019, issue, the magazine wrote about business schools in the U.S. and the market forces forcing them to […]

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Keeping Up With Technology, As Observed Through CPA Continuing Education

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More than 40 years ago, I started working at Price Waterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC). Even though I was on the consulting track, I was encouraged to sit for the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam and become a licensed CPA. Having this license, along with an MBA, boosted my career and I subsequently served as […]

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Dawn of the Dead: It’s Merge or Perish for Private Colleges

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Matt Schifrin and Carter Coudriet of Forbes wrote an article about the financial ratings of private colleges, Dawn of the Dead: For Hundreds of the Nation’s Private Colleges, It’s Merge or Perish. The authors refer to Forbes’ analysis of the finances of 933 private, not-for-profit colleges with 500+ enrollments, stating that the majority of these institutions are in a precarious situation with their high tuition, tuition-dependent financial model, declining overall enrollments, and competitive landscape in higher education. […]

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Should Skills Training Replace Higher Education? Yes, the “Expensive Wandering” Part

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Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Getting Smart and former executive director for education of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, recently wrote about changing criteria in considering college education versus other pathways pursued by high school students and their parents. […]

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Which College Graduates Make the Most?

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On November 20, 2019, the Department of Education released its long-awaited update to the College Scorecard, revealing median debt, earnings and other data for graduates of specific programs of the represented schools. The Wall Street Journal was given an exclusive look at the data before publication, and provides some comparisons of the data among schools and a handy tool for sorting the dataset by school, degree level and degree type to show the median debt for graduates and median income level the first year after graduating.  […]

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Reviewing the Methodology Behind New ROI Rankings for 4,500 Colleges

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I am no fan of the Department of Education’s College Scorecard, primarily because it is incomplete and may be misleading for some metrics. Much of the data is derived from students using Federal Student Aid (FSA) only and some of it is from those who are first-time, full-time students using FSA loans. At APUS, most of our students are part-time, working adults not using FSA to fund their education. I first wrote about the Scorecard in 2016 and reported about others like me who criticized its incomplete data.

Despite the flaws of the Scorecard, I understand why Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce recently attempted to create a return on investment (ROI) for all colleges using this data. First, it’s the only published source that uses IRS data to match earnings with students who have attended those specific institutions and who received FSA. With access to earnings, institutional costs and debt incurred, the researchers can calculate a rudimentary ROI.

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Subjects of Interest

Artificial Intelligence/AI

EdTech

Higher Education

Independent Schools

K-12

Science

Student Persistence

The Future of Work

Workforce

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